Nashville, TN

We got off the highway in Hermitage TN (which by the way boasts the estate of President Andrew Jackson), followed our AAA Triptik directions down an access road between a gas station and a McDonalds, and came out in the middle of a brand new housing development. All of the houses are made of brick here, and there wasn’t a sole outside (of course it was 4:00 on a weeknight). A little bit further and we were in the middle of a very nice campground next to Seven Points Lake.
We set up the camper, and the girls went swimming while I attempted a few repairs on a flaky right tail light on the trailer (which was a dismal failure, more on this later). The report was that the lake was like bath water (yes it’s pretty hot out here).
After we dried off, we headed off to downtown Nashville for dinner. Working on a recommendation from a nice woman we met at the campground office, we ended up on Broadway, which is the main drag. Every corner has a cowboy singer wannabe on it, crooning anything from John Mellencamp to Johnny Cash and strumming either a guitar or a mandolin. Every bar had a live band, although some were playing to an empty room.
I asked a bouncer where he would go for the best meal in Nashville, and he pointed us to Ray’s Barbeque. One foot in the door and I was sold on the beguiling smell of smoke and sauce, but alas some members of our party were in the mood for something not made of pork or beef. So instead we ended up at “The Old Spaghetti Factory” which is apparently a chain. This particular restaurant is in some old brick building with huge high ceilings and tons of elaborate woodwork. The food came quickly and the meal was cheap and good.
The girls had picked out dessert before we’d even found a place for dinner, a homemade ice cream joint on the corner. We ordered a few cones from a kid with a Massachusetts accent (when asked what he was doing in Nashville he said that he really didn’t know!?).
On the way home we discovered that Tennessee likes to do road work on the Interstate at night and thinks nothing of completely closing most of the entrance ramps to get it done. We saw some mighty exotic parts of the city trying to get back on I-40 East.